Become a Gates Notes InsiderJoin the Gates Notes community to access exclusive content, comment on stories, subscribe to your favorite topics and more.

Sign Up

Sign In

- or -
Sign in with email

Forgot?

Sign In

Logout:

Become a Gates Notes Insider

- or -
Sign up with email

This email is already registered. Enter a new email, try signing in or retrieve your password

Send me updates from Bill Gates

Sign Up

Join the Gates Notes community to access exclusive content, comment on stories, subscribe to your favorite topics and more.We will never share or spam your email address. For more information see our Sign Up FAQ.By clicking "Sign Up" you agree to the Gates Notes Terms of Use / Privacy Policy.

Deactivating your account will unsubscribe you from Gates Notes emails, and will remove your profile and account information from public view on the Gates Notes. Please allow for 24 hours for the deactivation to fully process. You can sign back in at any time to reactivate your account and restore its content.

Deactivate My Acccount

Go Back

Your Gates Notes account has been deactivated.

Come back anytime.

Welcome back

In order to unsubscribe you will need to sign-in to your Gates Notes Insider account

Once signed in just go to your Account Settings page and set your subscription options as desired.

Sign In

Request account deletion

We’re sorry to see you go. Your request may take a few days to process; we want to double check things before hitting the big red button. Requesting an account deletion will permanently remove all of your profile content. If you’ve changed your mind about deleting your account, you can always hit cancel and deactivate instead.

Submit

Cancel

Thank You! Your request has been sent

Become a Gates Notes Insider for access to exclusive content and personalized reading suggestions

Sign Up

Sign up to receive occasional updates from the Gates Notes

Sign Up

Privacy Policy

Please complete your account verification. Resend verification email.

This verification token has expired.

Your email address has been verified. Update my profile.

Your account has been deactivated. Sign up to re-activate your account.

View all newsletters in the newsletter archive

You are now unsubscribed from receiving emails.

Sorry, we were unable to unsubscribe you at this time.

Fight back against mosquitoes

Visit the Mosquito Wars article to join our giveaway. Learn more

Fight back against mosquitoes

Become a Gates Notes Insider or sign in to join our giveaway and help stop the spread of malaria.Learn more

Day 2 at the UN: Uniting against Polio

Thursday was an outstanding day. The main reason for my trip to New York was to attend a meeting hosted by the Secretary-General of the United Nations where the heads of state from Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan stood alongside donor government officials and new donors from the public and private sector to outline what we need to do to stamp out polio. It was a remarkable display of solidarity, energy and commitment. It was an honor to be there.

Anyone who visits this website regularly knows that polio eradication is my number one priority and an area that I spend a lot of my time on at the foundation.

Thursday’s event was a fundamental step forward on the path to finishing the job of ending this terrible disease. The Secretary-General called it a “decisive moment” and I think anyone who was in the room, or watched online, would have to agree.

I had the chance to meet privately with the presidents of Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, and they all reaffirmed their public commitments to doing everything they possibly can to end this disease. Backing them up were commitments from the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Centers for Disease Control to aid in this important work. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard reaffirmed her country’s support for the effort, and the Islamic Development bank announced significant funding for Afghanistan and Pakistan to pursue polio campaigns. The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius also joined us, highlighting the long-standing and continuing generosity of the U.S. in this battle.

Rotary International, which has been working on this for 25 years, reminded us of our need to seize the moment and finish the job. Sandro Rosell who’s President of Football Club Barcelona and their foundation, announced the club’s engagement on the polio issue in collaboration with Etisalat, the largest telecomm operator in the Middle East.

We will be going to work full-steam on a comprehensive plan that gets us to a polio-free world, and I hope we’ll have something to announce in six months’ time. Today’s announcements were an excellent start.

Dr. Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization, said it very nicely. “No single one of us can bring this long, hard drive over the last hurdle. But together we can.”

Ending polio is not impossible. But it is not inevitable. It will require the courage and commitment of many. But the evidence is clear: if we all do our part, we can and will end this disease.